I sort of lost my focus halfway through this post...

This past week was fairly uneventful, in all the wrong ways. I get bored far too easily sometimes, but what can you do? Yesterday we had our last home game, and it was pretty crazy go nuts. We won 28-10, so that was cool, next week we play BYU, that's going to be intense. After the game i went over to cami's and got a BLT, did some laundry and played games with cami and some of her friends, so that was a pretty decent night.

I have a killer headache, and it's really not a lot of fun, i had one friday night too, but that was on the right side, whereas this is on the left. good stuff either way though.

Thursday i played a little 3 v 3 ultimate frisbee, which never works very well, but this was pretty decent. We won over all but lost the pivotal ending game point, but that was ok, it was way too cold for ultimate with no gloves. We also almost went to see a free movie, but it was sold out, so instead we wandered around Gateway, hit up an arcade, and found a glorious rock wall at Dick's, so that's kinda going to be my new random obsession for the next while i think. The rock wall won round one, my grip gave out before i was even halfway up (to be fair, the bottem half has the two hardest spots, and after you can't hold on it's hard to make much progress). But i may have found a solid workout buddy in Tim, so we'll see how that turns out.

Wednesday was a temple trip and i got to go to the Salt Lake Temple for the first time, so that was pretty cool.

Pretty unexciting week all in all, i'm going to read some Aeneid and try to get rid of this headache, and then i guess i should do my math homework.

It looks like i'm going to have an A in all my classes. Hooray for at least 1 more semester of scholarship.

~No Moss
This blog post is really unexciting, that's unfortunate.

oh yeah, thanksgiving is in a few days. I don't quite know what happened to this semester.

Buy Sneakers: A Note to Myself

It's 12:30 and i'm not really up to thinking of a clever title, and there's a sticky note on my compy reminding me what i need to do. Somehow the title comes off sounding deep.

Life of late has been tolerable. Monday night, and therefore tuesday, was completely crazy. I stayed up till 3am doing homework and not accomplishing anything, which was sad, because i managed to finish the whole thing in about 45 minutes on tuesday afternoon (although i'm concerned that i did everything wrong) Then i didn't have time to finish all my reading, so i missed a couple things on my odyssey reading quiz. I would have missed more, but memories ms. Mahan's 7th grade english class and wishbone came to my rescue. After that i pretty much hung out for a while, but probably due to lack of sleep, my roomate was really getting on my nerves, he really wasn't doing anything, and, true to form, just last sunday someone said something about how when someone annoys us we need to look at ourselves and think about what we are doing to be a good companion (on a mission) or roommate in my situation. That notwithstanding (a silly word), i needed to get out. So i sent James an SOS, and we played ping pong for a while, and then we met up with Cathy and Kelsey and hung out for the night, leaving my physics homework oddly neglected. At around 10am we finished our game (which consisted of a nerf football and a nerf basketball goal, and various variations on throwing technique) and so i went and did most of my homework, until i got frustrated at the world and quit, instead replying to an email and venting angsty angst while talking about how stuff was going.

Let me pause for just a moment here to point out the fact that i actually hung out with some people, a great step up from sitting in my room, or even hanging out with cami, which, while super fun, makes me feel like just a bit of a loser for not having any friends. So yeah, good stuff. moving on.

Oh, also on tuesday i tried to play intermural ultimate. I'm a 'free agent', a sort of ronin if you will, so i was looking for a team to join. What happened is a brilliant internal conflict. I got there at around 4:30 and it was the honors floor team vs. some other team. Now the honors floor team contains a bunch of members of the church, and through that i've ended up playing ultimate with them on thursdays, and i'm getting to know them and all kinda of good stuff like that. However, the honors floor team were getting their honors butts royally owned by the other team. So that was a little sad. But i asked them (the honors floor guys) if i could join their team and they said of course, and so that was all groovey. On the way back up to my dorm, i crossed paths with some people from the other team, and it turns out that they're my building's team, and they invited me to join it, since they only have around 9 players.

So, herein lies the conflict. Should i join the good team, under the justification that they are my building and they have fewer people and all, but in truth mostly because i want to be on the winning team (if the honors floor team had one i wouldn't even consider this) or should i stay with the honors guys, people i'm getting to know and be friends with. It's quite a predicament.

So, wednesday continued the stressyness of tuesday, but i felt a bit better. I didn't have any homework due, and i ran into cathy and kelsey at dinner so i talked to them for a bit, also adding to the not feeling like a loser bin. After that i went to volleyball though. now, for some more prologue.

A while back i went to plaza fest, which is basically a large convention type thing of all the different student organizations trying to get you to join them, there's tons of swag (or shwag, as it is more fun to say), music, free food, and other stuff like that. I gave a few people my email address, the ultimate frisbee and volley ball teams, Relay for Life, and something else that i don't remember at the moment. Anyway, i got an email from the volleyball team telling me that there'd be some friendly scrimages/practices throughout september. So i went, expecting your basic pick up volleyball game fun. As it turns out, these guys are playing volleyball at a level i've never even seen. There's all kinds of crazy jargon, strategy, spiking, all in all i was very much overwhelmed. The captain was really cool about it, didn't seem to blame me at all even though i probably made our team lose. It was at a point where i was probably doing more harm than good. But yeah, he told me i should come back next week, we'll see, if i'm going to be practicing with a team i have no intention of joining, i'll do ultimate, because in that i can at least hold my own.

This also made me re-realize that i really really hate to feel useless, or just generally fail at things. I've always known i didn't like failing, but somehow it's different and a lot worse in both active things (as opposed to, say, the last term of calculus), and especially in team games. It reminded me of ninth grade, and how i felt on the soccer team, where i definitely wasn't the best player (although i wasn't the worst, and that was nice) and snowboarding, where i fell over and over and over again. The best i ever felt that year may have been when i won the 200m butterfly and we won the swim meet, and the worst i felt all year was when i broke my arm and couldn't swim anymore. So from this, lets draw some conclusions:

I really hate letting people down. I don't mind failing individually, but when i fail others it makes me feel awful. Although i was getting a bit tired of falling when snowboarding, it wasn't until i snowboarded with a bunch of people and fell a bunch that i felt just stupid (and then breaking my arm didn't make me feel to awful. Man. that was a really bad night. i forgot how awful that night was. I had to walk home in the really very freezing night, and i had to use the bathroom really badly the whole way there.) Finally, i've concluded that i'm nowhere near as good at volleyball as the guys on my college team are.

This post is getting really quite long, and i'm geting really quite tired, so i'll wrap it up. Today was great. I'm a big fan of thursdays. I slept in until 10am, which i think has pretty much fixed my stressed outyness, and my eye twitch (my right eye's been twitching for the past few days. probably the most annoying thing possible). In physics discussion i learned almost nothing, but did manage to copy down an equation that made my homework tonight possible, even if i don't understand why (which i can't stand). I finished my reading before my class, and then on the way there discovered a 3 dollar pizza slice (wow. what a rip off. i was starving at the time so i didn't think about it, but that pizza was no where near worth 3 dollars) and a free doughnut (which was worth every cent). I played CIV III for a while, and i'm starting to get better, to teh point where i can compete with the computers, although i'm thinking that they cheat, both because they somehow go super fast, and because the computer keeps placing me in crappy spots without iron or gold, so i'm dirt poor and can't create a good army.

After that i played ultimate frisbee, and our team one, most definitely due to my impressive one man defense (there were about 4 people in the endzone, and i was pretty much the only one there still guarding them, and i stopped about 3 points). So that was fun. I have a gnarly battle wound, although nothing compared to my suitemate sam's gruesome mountain bike induced gashes. So yeah. I just finished my physics homework completely, so that was nice, and now i have to go to sleep, and dread the onslought of calculus, which is actually better now, both because we're doing new stuff, which i can learn as fast as everyone else, and because i've remembered most of what i've forgotten about calculus, which was really slowing me down in the slightly reviewish sections about sequences and such. So yeah, that is quite a post for only covering four days, but failure can cause me to wax poetic. 1am on the other hand, causes me to wane conscious, so i'm going to go to sleep now.

"We could close the curtains; pretend like there's no world outside. We could pretend it all the time"

~Hala ka ukelele

So, it's been a little while

The major problem with owning a Wii is now my free time is more like Frii time, and while super fun, it's sucking up my time for being productive, and more importantly, blogging.

A lot's gone down over the past while. I'm going to go backwards, because that's the way i remember it.

I just got back from Pirates of the Caribbean, which is a really great movie. It makes the 2nd movie worth watching, although still inexcusably bad. It was nice to finally hang out with johnny a bit, since i haven't in a while, hopefully there'll be some of that tomorrow.

Since my last post i've pretty much finished high school. It's insane. I got my cap and gown on Tuesday. All that remains is a hefty calculator fine, since the one i borrowed and the really awesome ti-89 i won both got stolen out of my backpack. So that made me pretty upset. Add that to the tab of stuff that morally lacking people owe me along with yu-gi-oh cards, a trogdor shirt, and a bike, all stolen on jackson public school property. So glad that's the last time that'll happen.

I've had some nice hanging out and saying goodbye with the cool teachers that i like, mr. jones, mrs. williams, mrs. polanski, unfortunately i haven't really gotten to do the whole goodbye thing for ms brierly or mrs van uden, but i'll get to that hopefully. It's really weird to think that this is the last time i'm going to be seeing a lot of people.

I've mostly been working lately. I really like my job, and my job really likes me. It sounds kinda self centered, but i like this job a lot because i'm much more appreciated than i was at backyard burgers. 2/3 of my managers liked me there, but Andrew, Joe, and Jeff are all very good at complementing good work. It's cool. I wish i could keep working here and live in Salt Lake.

Wow. I'm going to be living in salt lake in less than two months. I still haven't quite gotten a handle on this whole college thing. I've applied for housing, picked roommates (which was really hard) and scheduled some orientation. I fly out of mississippi on the 14, and i'm gone. insane.

I've also been playing Zelda a lot. Like really a lot, i've had it for less than a week and i've played it over 30 hours i think. But c'est la vie and all that.

I finished up all my AP exams, and i expect to do at least very decent. I'm hoping for 5's on the english and math exams, but i have a hard time knowing. The gov i'll shoot for a 3, a four if i'm lucky, and i'd be more than happy to have a 3 for euro.

I've been noticing how much working at Sal and Mookie's has reworked the way i think. I now have a few weird compulsions, like stabbing tickets, and taking dirty plates. I very naturally carried three plates at a pot-luck, and when i handed someone a drink i came very very close to saying, "you enjoy that sir" in my sort of cheesily sincere kindness i've been developing. I also hold the door open for people and say hi or ask them how their doing on the street. Sal and Mookies has done more to instill southern hospitality in a month than the south has in 14 years.

It's also kinda weird to think that i'll be leaving the south. As much as i've tried to avoid it, this is very much where i'm from. I get a bit defensive when people from outside the south talk about it, or just are ignorant. I am ready to go though. Even though i doubt college will be the holy grail of coolness, success, and awesome that i'm hoping for, i'm hoping the mayor won't be completely insane and the bureaucracy completely useless. But i wax political.

That's all that comes to mind as far as news and such. i had my seminary graduation a little bit ago, so that's cool. In one week i will be a high school graduate. go figure.

Pergatory

That was, quite possibly, the most nervous i've been about anything in a long time. But as of last night i am nearly officially an eagle (some paper work has to go through dallas, but for all purposes, i have it, i even got to use the secret handshake). That was kinda scary, that whole unsurety about being an eagle. I think my Eagle scout is worth 45 dollar pants...we still might bring those back though.

Otherwise yesterday was pretty nice. I'm really happy. Wooo!

Last night i drove by mcnally's to pick up my cell phone and go shopping, at some point in there i lost my wallet, so i didn't go shoppping, but we (caitlin and he and i...that sounds pedantic) came home (my wallet turned out to be in the car) and watched LOST (which was crazy and awesome) and then i dropped caitlin off and went shopping and then dropped michael and made it home around 1 and fell asleep in my contacts and my pants.

because of that, today i accidentally skipped school, and didn't wake up till Ian came to borrow the frisbee, i went with him for ultimate, where we played the best 3 on 3 game imaginable. i didn't know 3 on 3 could possibly be good. Tonight Sal and Mookie's opens for reals so that's going to be crazy, i'm kinda worried, but it should be an adventure and some good tips.